


Home Is Wherever I'm With You

by AndreaLyn



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-14 09:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18050300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: Michael goes home. Then, he does it all over again.





	1. i'll go if you let go

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Home by Edward Sharpe & Magnetic Zeroes and the lyrics at the header are Magnetic Fields' "You're My Only Home". There may be a theme.

_i’ll go if you let go_

 

On Wednesday afternoon, Alex answers the door to find Isobel Evans-Bracken on his doorstep, looking like she’s been crying for hours. 

Instantly, Alex’s worries kick into high gear. They’re not good friends, not really, and if he thinks of what could possibly connect them, there’s one person that they have in common and if he’s not here with her, then her tears are a very bad sign. 

“Isobel,” he says, trying frantically to figure out what’s wrong before his mind sinks to the worst case scenario. “Was there an accident? Is someone hurt?” He’s saying ‘someone’, but they can both read between the lines. They know exactly who he’s asking about. “What happened?”

“I should have ignored him,” she says, wiping at her tears angrily, and that’s when he sees the letter in her hands. “He left this for you, made me swear I wouldn’t give it to you until he was gone.”

She offers it out to him and Alex reaches out for the envelope, staring at his name scrawled in Michael’s messy handwriting. It’s still sealed shut, but by the way Isobel is looking at it, she’s clearly had a thought or two about ripping it open.

She’s crying openly now, wiping at her cheeks, like she doesn’t care that Alex is seeing this side of her or she genuinely can’t stop herself. “I thought he was joking,” she manages to get out, a pained sob on her lips. “I did it, Iz,” she’s pitched her voice lower, like she’s trying to imitate him. “I figured it out, I’m going home. You and Max are happy, you have futures, it’s time for me to go.” She shakes her head vehemently. “That asshole, he was always too smart for his own good. Never even told us what he was working on, just decided to solve the problem and take off when he got his chance.”

Alex keeps staring at the envelope in his hands. It doesn’t take long for him to put the pieces together and he has the feeling that even a blind and deaf man could understand what’s happened. 

At the same time, he doesn’t believe it. Why should he?

Michael’s never the one to walk away. Alex has left, time and time again, and when he comes back, Michael’s always there. He doesn’t feel like he’s in his own body when he opens the envelope and digs out the letter, written with painstaking care. If he looks closely enough, the paper goes thin in places, dotted on the ink of certain letters.

 _He was crying_ , his mind tells him, even though it could just as easily be a grease stain or something else. The more he reads, the more he feels numb, and soon enough, Alex feels like he’s adrift at sea, and there’s no way that he’s going to make it. 

He’s not sure if he should tell Isobel to go, but the first sentences of the letter distract him enough that he doesn’t send her away. In a moment, he’ll be glad, because he’s not sure he could do this alone.  


> _Alex,_
> 
> _I know things didn’t work out between us, but I still wanted to say goodbye somehow. I’m sorry I didn’t do it in person, but I think if I had, I wouldn’t have left and we all know there’s no real place for me here. You would have made me want to stay, even though things between us never seem to work out._
> 
> _You deserve a better life than the one I can give you and there’s a home out there waiting for me where I could have family, maybe even a purpose. I’m trying not to waste my life and I’m hoping that you’ll do the same._
> 
> _Do me a favor though. The next time you’re stargazing and you see a shooting star, maybe you can make a wish. Maybe it’ll be me._
> 
> _I loved you. I love you. I’ll always love you. Past, present, probably even my future, because you were it for me even if I wasn’t for you. I hope you always know that._
> 
> _Maybe this time, I’ll finally find a home that wants me, a warm bed and a steady roof over my head where they don’t kick me out for being a freak or break my bones for loving their son._
> 
> _Take care of Max and Isobel for me. They say they’re strong, but I know you’re stronger._
> 
> _Make sure they take care of you, too._
> 
> _\- MG_
> 
> _P.S. Keep looking at the stars and know that I’m still looking back_

“Isobel, what is this?” Alex asks, clutching the paper tightly in his fingers, even though he’s paranoid of tearing it. If he really did leave, then Michael’s loping handwriting is one of the few things he has left from him. “Isobel.” He takes a deep breath and feels himself list to the side, and it’s only Isobel’s arms around him that keep him steady. He’s still stunned, in disbelief. This is just some sick joke. Michael is probably at the Wild Pony and when he sees him, he’s gonna kick his ass.

Only, Isobel is sobbing into his neck, and Alex has the sinking feeling that this isn’t a trick at all.

“Why did he go?” he ekes out, feeling like a little boy again, who just doesn’t understand. “He said he had people here. Call him,” he demands. “Isobel, call him. Get him back from Tennessee or wherever he went, make him, make him come back.” He’s fumbling to get his phone, dialling Michael’s number so that he can force her to do it. Even if Michael doesn’t want to talk to him, he'll talk to Isobel. 

It never connects. The line is cut, no service.

“He went back,” Isobel says, her voice watery as she sniffs. “Max tried to convince him not to go, tried to reason with him, but he wouldn’t listen. That idiot,” she says. “He was working on it all this time, and finally, he figured out how to make a ship with the pods,” she keeps talking nonsense, making Alex worry that she’s going insane. “He used the remaining material and he fused it with something, figured out the formula to get out of here and go back home to find his family, like we weren’t enough. Why would he do that?”

Alex doesn’t know. He’s asking himself the same question right now. He’d left the last time and it had taken every ounce of his willpower to do it. He never thought Michael would be the one to leave. Wherever he went, he’s got to be able to come back, right? He refuses to believe that’s not possible. 

“Make him come back,” Alex says again, his voice small. He knows he’s asking for something that can’t happen, but it doesn’t matter. It’s all he wants. “He has to come back, he can’t have gone far, just, tell him, tell him that I’m sorry, don’t say anything at all if I’m the reason he went, just…”

_Give me another chance to make this right._

Isobel reaches out and takes both of his hands in hers. “I’m sorry,” is what she says, but it’s not about Michael. At least, it doesn’t seem to be, because suddenly the world goes hazy and quiet. It’s blurred and it feels like it’s slowed down, like a sticky hot summer day. Alex looks around, but they haven’t gone anywhere. Isobel is there with him, and every thought he has seems to glide between them, like he has no way to hide them from her. 

“What?”

“I’m in your mind,” Isobel says. “This is what I can do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Yes, you do,” Isobel says and plucks a thought out of his head from years ago, when he’d noticed how it was strange that Michael, Max, and Isobel had all been found in such a weird situation. She rifles through and finds another one that he’s repressed, when he swore that he’d seen Michael move nails into Jesse Manes’ truck tires. “He went home. Now that I’m fine, now that Max has Liz, when he solved the problem, he went. He left this world, and the only person that could have stopped him was you.”

“Then why didn’t you _call me_?” Alex erupts. 

The connection breaks when he rips away his hands and he gasps when the cold shock of reality hits him in the face. He realizes that he’s forcibly kicked Isobel out of his head or she left, but he’s not sharing any more of his personal memories with her, not when he already feels raw and ripped open.

“Home. Where’s that? You were found abandoned,” Alex says, but Isobel has left an imprint and a connection and when he closes his eyes, he sees three pods in the turquoise mines, the remnants of a ship in Michael’s trailer that matches the one he found in the cabin. “You were part of the crash?” That doesn’t make sense and more than that, does that mean he slept with a seventy-year-old? “You’re aliens.”

Connecting the pieces of this puzzle isn’t the hard part.

The hard part is the final piece that’s waiting to be clicked into place.

“Home means off the planet,” he says. “Why didn’t you call me?” he asks again, feeling as heartbroken as he did when he’d watched his father break Michael’s hand, but this time, no one’s wielding a weapon. He’s too late to do anything at all. 

He’s _gone_.

“He can’t just be gone,” he pleads. “Isobel, please.” He’s fought a war, he’s lost his leg, and he’s so powerless right now that it’s like he’s back in that field hospital watching them explain what they’re going to do before they take away a piece of him. It’s going to happen and he has no choice, only this time, it’s already happened and another part of him is gone, only this time it’s not his leg, it feels like half his heart and soul. “Don’t you have some way of contacting them? You can get him back,” he insists. “Use your power, reach out to him!”

“Don’t you think I’ve already tried!” she snaps. 

Gone. Michael’s gone. Worse than that, he left because he wanted to go home, all because Roswell has never been that place for him. Alex could have made that different if he’d made different decisions, but here they are.

Powerless, abandoned, alone.

He feels like a kid again, like he knows Michael used to feel in the foster homes. 

“I’m sorry,” Isobel apologizes, once she’s settled from her outburst. “Do you want me to leave?”

Alex doesn’t want to be alone, but the only person that can quiet the chaos in his head is Michael and he has no idea where he is. He drags himself back inside and stares at the cabin, shocked by how quiet it is. It’s been one thing to be alone when there was always the chance that maybe they’d make things work and fix it, but now that he’s gone…

Now that he’s gone…

Alex lets his back hit the wall in the foyer and he slides down to the ground, all the while Isobel is watching him warily, but he doesn’t answer her question to send her off. Eventually, she joins him and they sit there, hip to hip, staring forward without answers.

“What am I supposed to do without him? I freaked out when he was going to go off to school,” Isobel says quietly. “Now he’s a whole galaxy away, probably, back to the other alien geniuses who’ll probably want to keep him there forever.” 

The numbness is fading and Alex wishes, belatedly, that he hadn’t wanted it to go. It’s like a tsunami wave, rushing the numbness out, but when it impacts, it’s grief that hits him. _Forever_. Michael isn’t just in Tennessee, he’s gone home to another planet and Alex is never going to see him again.

“I never even told him that I loved him,” Alex says, his voice somehow steady.

When he looks over, Isobel doesn’t seem surprised about this confession. “He only left letters for you, Max, and me,” she explains. “I figured it out from there. He loved you, though. I never knew who it was, but I could feel it, always. It was like a second heartbeat that I could always sense in him.” 

Alex reaches over and takes her hand in his to hold. Right now, they’re twins in this grief and somewhere, Max is suffering in his own way and that makes three. 

“Did he know I loved him?”

Isobel doesn’t respond and won’t look him in the eye, which is answer enough.

_No, he never did._

Alex realizes in that moment that he’d always counted on them getting back together. Deep down, he thought it would be inevitable. They’d get over their issues and they would find their way back to each other. 

Instead, Michael made himself a map and left. He’d been planning on it for _years_ and no one had even known. Shifting, he rests his cheek against Isobel’s shoulder and lets his body sink, heavy with grief, until he feels like he can’t stand. She wraps her arm around him in kind and together, they grieve for what they had and now, what they never will again. 

It's the future lost that hurts the most, but it’s hard to tell, when everything aches so deeply.

* * *

He reads the letter daily. 

By now, two weeks in, he has it memorized. He knows every slant and sign of the handwriting. He knows every word. Most nights, he drives out to Foster Ranch and settles in to look up at the stars. The letter is always with him, pressed against his chest as if he wants it with him on the off-chance Michael ever comes back for them. Alex lies in the bed of his truck, wondering which of them Michael ended up on, wondering if Michael’s looking back and thinking the same. 

With his genius mind, though, he probably knows exactly which one is Earth, because he’s annoyingly smart like that. 

He’s about to grab his keys and head out for the Ranch when he opens the door and finds Max Evans on his doorstep. 

“Alex.” It’s not the first time in the last two weeks. They’ve met three times, with Isobel there twice. The three of them have been working to figure out a way to talk to Michael or bring him home, but every time the night ends in a shouting match with someone storming away because it inevitably ends with them admitting that they have no idea what to do. 

Alex isn’t sure he has the energy to do that again today. He’s taken leave from work and has been pathetically lounging around when he isn’t going to the junkyard to make sure they don’t tow Michael’s Airstream or throw away any of his things.

There’s an insane and stubborn belief that if Alex keeps tending to it, then Michael might just come home. 

“I was on my way out. What’s going on?”

“I know you said not to come back unless we had something, but I think we do. I went back to the mines,” Max says, holding out something that looks like an old tablet that has some of the same coloring as the ship piece did. “I think this strengthened my connection enough, because when I focused on the link between us, I was able to hear him.”

Alex’s eyes widen, frozen in place with sudden hope. “You talked to Michael?”

“Barely, man,” Max protests. “Long distance, I guess?”

Alex is already reaching for the tablet, ready to pry it from Max’s hands if that’s what he needs to do. “Let me talk to him, I’ll get him to come back here.”

Max looks pained, and Alex feels like they’re going to end today the way it always ends. Someone yelling, someone leaving, and Michael still out there amidst the stars. “We tested it with Liz before I came here. It doesn’t work with humans. I’d have to be your go-between.” 

It's far from perfect, but he doesn’t care. Alex welcomes Max inside and settles down on the couch, fidgeting and feeling awkward, not sure what he’s going to say. “How long does it last?”

“Not very,” Max says. “So, whatever you want to tell him, do it fast.”

Alex debates what he wants to say and it almost feels too soon when Max opens his eyes from where he’s meditating over the tablet, giving Alex a signal to start with a nod. There’s a connection there, and Alex waits patiently for Max to start, wringing his hands. “Michael, it’s me. I’m here with Alex, he wants to talk to you.” Max furrows his brow, then glances up at Alex warily, tilting his head to the side like he doesn’t want Alex to hear this and he manages to hush his voice just enough so Alex can’t hear everything. “You’re with them now? … your family…? Do they know about…?”

Then, Max looks back to Alex, like he’s just remembered he exists.

“Tell him I’m sorry,” Alex says and Max repeats, though he’s a lot more emotionally stable than Alex sounds. “Tell him that he should figure out how to visit,” he’s frantic, trying to rattle off as much as he can before this connection cuts off. “I don’t want to keep looking at the stars, I want to look at him, and …” Max is keeping up with him, murmuring the words into the tablet. “And tell him I love him,” Alex insists, but from the look on Max’s face, it’s too late. 

“He faded out when I was telling him about the stars. He was with his family,” Max says, looking guilty. 

Alex can’t fault Michael for going back and finding connections when he’s never had them all his life. Unfortunately, he’s feeling pretty petty and vindictive today, so he’s angry that it had to be now. 

“Did he sound happy?”

Max says nothing, like he’s not sure, and it hurts Alex even worse to imagine that after all this, Michael might be trapped up there and unhappy. 

“I can come back tomorrow,” Max offers. “We could try again?”

Alex doesn’t want to have to tell Michael he loves him through Max’s voice. He wants to say it to him directly. Anything less and he’s always going to wonder if Michael really understands how much he means it, he’s always going to want to have seen his face when he says it. 

It kills him to do, but he shakes his head. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” He wants them to keep working on how to convince Michael to come home. If he’s not happy there, then he doesn’t need to stay. It’s also so selfish of Alex that he instantly feels awful, because it’s been decades and Michael finally has a chance to be with people who love him. 

It’s only that there’s one of those right here in Roswell, too, and he’s ready to make up for lost time. There’s Isobel and Max and as complicated as things are between the three of them, Alex knows they love Michael, too.

Max leaves the tablet with him, even though it won’t do anything in his human hands. Still, Alex puts it on his front table and every day before he leaves the cabin, he touches it, like he can somehow keep a part of Michael with him. 

“I know you’ll be back,” Alex says, every time he comes home to it. “I know one day, you’ll come home and I’m gonna be here when you do.”

Until that happens, Alex isn’t leaving Roswell. Michael stayed here for ten years and maybe he hadn’t been waiting specifically for Alex, but still, it’s his turn. 

He’s way too stubborn to give up, not this time.


	2. but I won't go far away

_but I won’t go far away_

 

On a Friday, Alex Manes decides to get shit-faced drunk, because it seems like a better option than sitting at home and wallowing in his anger. 

It's been three months since Isobel turned up at his door with Michael’s letter. Since then, Max has kept trying to reach out and talk to Michael, but either the connection never goes through or Michael’s busy helping solve some problem or maybe he’s just making up for lost time with his family. It sounds like he has a life on whatever planet he’s back on, which means that Alex should get on with his. 

He’s going to. He swears he is.

He’ll even start tomorrow. 

Tonight, he’s planning to take up Michael’s old spot at the bar in the Wild Pony, ordering a beer from Maria and giving himself permission to drag out the letter to read it. He hasn’t done that daily ritual yet, having held off because he knows how much it will hurt to read, like every time before. He reads it three times before he puts it away, and when he does, he sees Maria staring at him.

“You know you’re not allowed to drink alone, right? Your sad puppy face breaks my heart, makes me want to adopt you,” she chides, reaching over to pinch his cheek, like she’s trying to make him smile. He strains away from the touch and she raises her hands in apology. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll get someone to watch the bar. You shouldn’t have to drink without your friends.”

Alex isn’t so sure he wants company right now, but he also knows better than to turn her down. If he does that, that’s going to open a can of worms he’s not ready to dive into just yet. Besides, she’s probably right. Him sitting there and drinking until he’s ready to start a fight just to feel close to Michael again isn’t exactly _healthy_.

She sets a bottle of whiskey between them (for her) and two beers (for him) when she rounds the bar to sit with him.

“You sure you can leave the bar? What happens if things get busy?” Alex isn’t trying to make her leave, but he’s not sure he’s the best company right now and he doesn’t want her figuring that out. 

“I never thought I’d say it, but it’s _boring_ without Guerin here picking fights,” Maria says, making Alex flinch. “What happened to him anyway? He finally get tired of this place and run away?”

Alex forces himself not to react, because if he does, the whole façade he’s built up will come crumbling down and he suspects he’ll blurt the whole truth out. He doesn’t want to talk about how Michael decided to leave because Roswell could never be what he needed and because there had been nothing left for him. If he admits that, then it means Alex had a hand in making him go when they’d decided not to try things.

No, he has to call it like it is -- when Alex had decided things weren’t going to work to protect his own heart. That turned out really well, didn’t it? 

He feels someone at his other elbow, but doesn’t have the energy to turn and look. He’s not sure he can dwell in shared grief with Isobel or Max tonight, so when he hears Liz ask for one of his beers, his shoulders visibly sag in relief.

“Maria texted me,” she explains, giving their mutual friend a conspiratorial smile as she takes the beer Alex hands her. “She said there was a lost puppy lingering around the bar and I had to pick him up.” Dragging a stool over to sit on the other side of him, she wraps her arm around his, giving Maria her attention. “Michael found some of his family and reached out to them, so he’s gone off to stay with them for a while.”

Liz is officially his new favorite person for answering that just so Alex doesn’t have to.

“That’s incredible,” Maria says. “Out of the blue like that?”

“Some aunt and uncle, yeah,” Liz agrees, and Alex looks at her with wide eyes, brows furrowed. He’s not sure how much of this is truth from what she’s learned via Max and how much is a fabrication, but he’s going to run with the former. Maybe it won’t hurt as much if he can imagine Michael back home with aunts and uncles, cousins, maybe even nieces and nephews to spoil and teach. 

Alex drags his beer closer to him so he doesn’t have to think about how Michael could have had that here if Isobel and Noah ever decided to have a kid. They could have figured out how to be the fun uncles together. 

Apparently, he’s reached the depressing and soppy drunk portion of the evening, pulling his beer even closer and hugging it to his chest with both arms.

Maria gives Alex a suspicious look and he knows the inevitable is about to happen.

“When did that happen?” she asks Liz. “Maybe, I don’t know, three months ago?”

Yeah, Alex is screwed. 

He might as well lean into his fate. Picking at the label on the beer bottle, he inhales deeply to try and give himself courage and when he pushes the air out, he feels like it’s taking some of the grief with it. Unfortunately, every time he does it, it reminds him of the way Michael used to hold his breath with him, that push of air when things got to be too much, and the _exhale_ that always spoke louder than words. 

“Alex,” Maria says. “You said you hadn’t noticed,” she accuses, with a playful smack of his shoulder.

The trouble is that Alex isn’t in the mood for playful. 

“Wait, what?” Liz asks, sounding thirsty for the gossip.

“I said that Guerin got hot, y’know, in that dirty criminal way and Alex here said he hadn’t noticed.”

“He was already hot,” Alex protests, because he still remembers staring at him when they were seventeen, wondering how it was that no one else around could see how painfully attractive he was. Then again, given that Michael had been sleeping with girls before they’d started their doomed affair, maybe Alex just willfully hadn’t noticed. “He’s my home,” he says, his roundabout confession that Michael is “Museum Guy”, but then, saying the words hurts like a hot poker in his side.

Michael is the one who made him feel right, who’d made him feel like he had a home.

Alex hadn’t been enough to make a home out of, because he’d pushed Michael away. 

He’s done with crying and he’s definitely not going to do it in public, but he can feel the sting of that truth down to his very soul. He closes his eyes tightly, feeling Liz’s hand on his shoulder squeezing and Maria on the other side of him, pressing in closer. 

“Fuck,” he exhales, letting out a push of air that he hopes is the rest of his grief so he can get it out of him for good. “Can we talk about _anything_ else?”

“Did he tell you he was going?” Maria doesn’t want to let it drop. Something else seems to hit her. “Wait. Were you two still together when he…?”

“No,” Alex says, uncomfortable, but needing to admit to the hardest part of this. “When I got back, we were hanging out together, spending some time with each other, but I ended things. There was nothing between us when he left, I just sort of never really thought he’d _go_. I don’t know, I’m an idiot when it comes to a few things in my life.”

Michael Guerin and his father, and the latter had gotten in his head and ruined things with the former. 

“I miss him.” It’s the first time Alex has said that out loud to anyone. Three months later, and he doesn’t know how to move on. He doesn’t know that he wants to. “I want to tell him that, but he didn’t leave any information on how to get in touch. I guess he wanted a clean break.”

He already knows that if he’d made it to Michael before he’d left, he could have convinced him back, but maybe it’s for the best that he didn’t. Would he have actually figured all this out? Or would he have done it selfishly, just to get him back before he let things go to shit again because he just wasn’t ready. The next chance he gets (if he does get one), Alex doesn’t intend to waste it. He’s going to tell Michael that he’s ready and that there’s no way he’s going to let things end. 

He’s not a kid anymore. He’s a grown ass man and that means taking responsibility for yourself and your life. It means being mature enough to know what you want and going after it.

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Maria says. “How about we take this party to the diner?” she suggests, leaning forward to catch Liz’s eye. “Fries, milkshakes, and a ridiculous amount of Baileys to go with it?” she suggests. 

It’s not exactly the relief of knowing Michael is coming home, but getting drunk with his friends, eating terrible food, and staring at little alien faces on the wall? Yeah, that sounds like it’ll get him through the night, at least. 

“Yeah,” Alex agrees, because maybe this is the first step to patching up his broken heart. Maybe this is how he needs to start digging himself out of his grief. “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.” 

Maybe it’s time to start moving on? 

It seems impossible, but he thinks if he’s going to have a chance at feeling like himself again, he’s going to have to start letting Michael go, one awful day at a time. Maybe he’s never going to come back. If he does, then Alex is ready for him, but what happens if Michael stays out there amongst the stars and Alex, trapped on Earth, is doomed to wait?

Maybe closure is the best place to start and not acceptance, because no matter what, he knows he’ll keep that door in his heart open just a touch to allow for that hope that Michael will come back to him. 

If he let the love of his life go so easily _again_ , he’s not sure he could forgive himself. 

So, he makes his decision. He may start to move on and heal, but he’s not planning to forget or let go of that hope that one day, he’ll get a chance to make up for his mistakes.

* * *

Alex is starting to hate the fact that they’ve been having so many clear skies lately. It just means that every night when he drives out to Foster Ranch, watching the base being built up piece by piece, the stars gleam above him brilliantly, a stark reminder of what Michael abandoned him for. 

It’s a Saturday night, six months after Michael left, and Alex is fed up with Roswell, the world, and the whole stupid universe. 

“You know what,” he tells the stars and planets winking above him, “fuck you.”

He’s three beers into a sixer and he’s angry and exhausted enough to be shouting at his ex-boyfriend who decided to vanish into the stars to find his home. Tonight’s been a really bad night. He was on his fifth date with this _really_ nice guy who was down from Santa Fe when Adam had said that it just wasn’t going to work out.

He didn’t even give Alex a good reason, just said that he hadn’t been “feeling it”. 

What’s worse is that Adam was a good guy. He had a steady job and he was handsome and respectable. His Dad didn’t even hate him when Alex had brought him around to introduce him, so it should have been perfect, but Alex had felt exactly the same about him. There had never been any real spark.

So here he is on Foster Ranch, where Michael’s trailer used to be, staring up at the sky and yelling at Michael. 

“It’s been six months and guess what! I’m still not over you! Is that what you want to hear? If this was all some clever plan for me to realize how much I’d miss you if you went, then it worked.” This isn’t how he wanted it to go, but Alex has to admit that there’s a vicious sort of irony in the fact that it took Michael doing what Alex kept pulling over the years for him to figure out his feelings.

He reaches into the six-pack for his fourth, popping open the cap so he can continue falling into this spiral of self-loathing.

“You don’t even pick up the tablet when Max reaches out, when Isobel does,” he says, swigging the beer angrily. “So, that’s it? You’re done with us? What could you possibly be doing up there that’s so much better than all this?” He’s laughing sardonically, because a drunken airman loitering on the government’s property probably isn’t the best example.

Not to mention, when Michael had left, he’d figured there was nothing here for him – no port in a storm, no light in the abyss. Alex had done a really good job of that, something he’s been trying to forget all these months, but then, Michael leaving is a pretty good punishment for him caving to his father’s pressures.

“You told me to look at the stars,” he repeats the letter (which, even now, sits in his jacket pocket). “So fine. I’ll look at them, I’ll make a wish, same as I do every night.”

It’ll be the same wish that he makes, the one that never comes true, and even now that he’s trying to move on, he’s not wishing for Adam back or to find a new guy.

Nah, the wish is the same as ever.

_Come back to me_ , he says, watching the sky above him and how it glistens brightly. 

Those stars, which he’s become accustomed to staring at, seem different tonight. The sky seems charged with a different kind of energy that Alex had written off as his drunken state, but even a drunk would notice that some of the stars seem particularly brighter than usual, especially one of them that looks like it’s hurtling down towards the ground at a rate that is less shooting star and more ‘brace for impact’. His tipsy mind goes through a slow process of denial, because why would it hit right here? There’s a whole world out there and this is the equivalent of lightning striking twice.

It’ll land in Arizona or Mexico, somewhere else, anywhere but here.

That denial changes _fast_ within seconds, when there’s no mistaking where it’s going. That bright object, whether asteroid or meteor or _ship_ is headed straight for the land on Foster Ranch.

“Fuck,” Alex says, digging out the keys as he slides his ass into his truck, gets the ignition running, and guns the reverse as fast as he can to escape the impending crash. He only manages to get far enough away that he feels a ripple of the explosion when the object crashes into the ground, the heat of it searing as it pushes past him, the airbags going off from the concussive force. 

_We’re not supposed to build on top of Santa’s workshop either_ , rings in his head, like a malicious voice reminding him of how stupid he is. 

He’s barely clear of the wreck, but he’s safe. He pushes the airbags out of the way, stumbling out of the truck to figure out _what_ crashed. It looks vaguely like a circle, made up of a material that he recognizes from his cabin.

What happens next, he swears, happens in slow motion (but really, that’s just the beer slowing his mind down).

Alex figures out that it must be a ship. If it’s a ship, then there’s only one person who would ever willingly come back to Roswell. Only, then he looks at the flames, the way the ship is torn to pieces, and he feels frozen in terror, eyes going blurry as they well up with tears. If Michael has come home only to be a part of that wreck, and Alex has really lost him, beyond all hope, then he's not sure how to cope with that.

He wants to take back every starry wish he’s made, as if his desperate need to have Michael come home has caused this disaster. His vision still blurry and his feet paralyzed, he blames himself and wishes for the first time that Michael had stayed _away_.

No sooner than he finishes that though, Alex swears he sees movement about a half mile left of the crash, near some of the brush. 

For at least a few minutes, Alex thinks he’s too drunk to be seeing properly. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s had this fantasy, but squinting through the fire and the smoke, he figures out very quickly that this isn’t a dream. He digs out his phone frantically to call Max and Isobel. He doesn’t bother calling the military, because he knows they’re on their way, if not already here. 

“It’s Michael,” he says, and hobbles forward, trying his best to get across the crash. Michael is standing there, wearing nothing but a tattered pair of pants and t-shirt and he looks torn up, but frozen in place, his attention split between the ship and Alex. 

If this is a fantasy, it’s the most beautiful, realistic, and heartbreaking one he’s ever had.

Alex needs to get to him. He needs to cross the distance and make sure Michael understands how much Alex doesn’t want him to go again. He needs to touch him, put his hands on his body and feel the warmth beneath his fingertips. He needs to map out the pulse points and relearn every inch of Michael’s perfect being. 

In that moment, the only thing Alex needs to do isn’t breathe or serve or move, his only need is to kiss Michael Guerin so he can feel like he’s come home. 

He’s too slow, though. He hasn’t got his crutch, he’s tipsy and disoriented, and he’s not quick enough to beat the military. Someone from the base must have seen the object in the sky too, because before Alex can get to him, bright lights flood the crash scene and a booming voice over a loudspeaker instructs him to stay back. 

Stuck where he is, staring at Michael from a hundred yards away, he mouths, “Hide”. 

They have precious minutes before they’re over-run and Michael drifts off, slipping away from the worst of the crash, though he’s still on the scene, just out of sight. The last thing Alex needs is for them to haul Michael in for questioning when he’s already a person of interest, because Alex already knows how many rules he’d break to get him out and tonight’s already complicated enough. Alex wants to tell him to get _further_ away, but he knows Michael well enough to know that telling him to do something will always yield the opposite result. 

Torn between storming over and hauling him out of there and acting the part of the responsible airman, he chooses the latter, knowing it will work out better for them in the long run. 

He’s too drunk to actually be involved, but when a few of his fellow airmen arrive, he insists on staying to help out, even in a limited capacity. “I’ll stick on the perimeter,” he says, because that won’t compromise anything and besides that, he needs to be able to control that, for when the Evans’ arrive. 

“Okay,” says one of his buddies, even if they probably think it’s a better idea to send Alex home. No one wants to say that to his face when he’s standing there with a fierce look of determination in his eyes, unwilling to be moved. “Don’t touch anything though, okay?” 

Besides, there’s plenty to do in roping off the crash scene and being hands on is a better assignment than standing guard, so Alex volunteering for it means they won’t have to do it. Past their wary looks to each other, no argument is broached. Alex situates himself outside the official investigation where he has the cover of a few of the trailers they bring in to process evidence. It means that when Max pulls up in the sheriff’s car with Isobel beside him, he’s able to slip them in with a quick comment about how they’re ‘working with the local authorities’ before ushering them to the side where they’ll be protected and people who might run and tell his father won’t notice.

“How do you know it’s him?” Max demands. 

“I saw him,” Alex says, nodding vigorously like he’s half-trying to convince himself that he really saw Michael and not just some ghost. “I tried to tell him to get out of sight and hide, but I don’t think he’s gone very far.”

Isobel’s face says how stupid she feels that decision is, but at least now they don’t have to go on a manhunt to find him. 

Alex turns to scan the area, trying to think of the least crowded area. He hopes Michael will be nowhere near the crash and is relieved to find that when he looks to where the barricades of the perimeter are, there’s a familiar face on the other side of them. No one is paying attention there, because as far as they’re concerned, anybody who came down with the ship would be in it, two miles from the barricade, in pieces in the wreckage. 

Who cares about some dirty local that wants a glimpse?

There he is, though. Michael is leaning all his weight onto his forearms, leaning on the barricade like it’s keeping him up. He’s battered and bruised, his clothes torn and he’s staring at the ship with what looks like tears on his face. Alex, with his peers so close by while they comb the crash site, can’t break protocol and go check on him. 

If he does that, it’ll call attention to them. 

Lucky for them, Max and Isobel Evans don’t have the same issue. 

They’re far enough away that two locals sprinting _away_ from the crash site isn’t suspicious, but Alex suddenly not doing his job is going to have questions raised. He’s never been more jealous in his life, but at least someone will be there to welcome Michael back.

“Oh my god, Michael,” Isobel breathes and bolts for him, Max not far behind. 

Alex is left in their dust, staring at Michael across the distance. Even though Max and Isobel are embracing him tightly, Michael is staring back at Alex like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be looking. Alex drifts just close enough to be able to overhear snippets of the conversation while still maintaining the perimeter. He doesn’t want to interfere and he doesn’t want to call attention to them, so he stands at attention with his back to them, just close enough to eavesdrop and not look like he’s doing anything other than his job, angled just enough towards them so he doesn’t actually have to stop looking at Michael.

He’s not sure he could if he tried.

“What happened?” Isobel asks heatedly. 

Alex will never admit to it, but when he hears Michael’s voice for the first time in six months, his knees go just a little weak. He never thought he’d hear that voice again and he closes his eyes to drink it in. “I couldn’t control the landing. Everything was fine until I hit atmosphere, then something went haywire, but I had the good sense to install what our folks didn’t. Crash chutes,” he boasts, but his voice is audibly shaken and Alex’s heart is in his throat when he opens his eyes and sees Michael staring at him, _still_ looking.

_I never look away_.

Fuck, Alex hopes he never, ever does.

Michael went _home_. He figured out a way off this planet and he left with his ship and a whole pile of hopes and dreams for what he was going to find. Alex hadn’t moved on, not really, because he didn’t know how to process it, but now he’s back. 

It’s been six whole months and Alex had barely figured out what to do with his life, but now Michael is staring at him and he’s not looking away. 

“Don’t you _ever_ do that again!” There’s a sound as Isobel shouts, which sounds like her hand smacking Michael’s chest, and when Alex turns fully to look, he can see her embracing him tightly, Max not far behind. Michael is letting them hug him, leaning into it, but he’s looking at Alex over their shoulders.

Alex asks himself whether Michael’s looked away since he got back. 

“If I knew I had to leave the planet to get this much affection out of the two of you, I would’ve done it ages ago,” Michael jokes.

“That’s not funny,” Max isn’t in the mood for humor and Alex isn’t, either. “Why did you come back?”

That’s _all_ Alex wants to know, so he finds himself leaning back so he can listen in, but before he can, he hears a commanding voice booming across the desert. 

“Manes!”

Alex startles back to life and his spine goes straighter, the way it always does when he’s around other servicemen. He’s being summoned over to take a look at the crash, his local opinion wanted (code for his family opinion). Casting an apologetic look backwards, he catches Michael’s eye one last time before Max and Isobel herd him off. 

Michael hasn’t stopped looking and he mouths, “Later,” to Alex.

If Michael thinks he’s leaving Roswell again without Alex at his heels, then he’s in for one sore surprise. He’ll tie him to his bed if that’s what it takes to keep him from vanishing again, because Alex has a lot to say, and a broken heart that he’s finally going to get a chance to patch. 

Later, he tells himself. He’ll find out why Michael is back and whether he’s back for good. If not, then Alex has plans to do some serious convincing, because there’s no way in hell he plans on adding a second goodbye letter to his collection.


	3. because you're my only home

_because you’re my only home_

 

The minute he’s cleared to leave the crash site, Alex goes to the junkyard, where he’s been faithfully making sure that they don’t tow or pry apart Michael’s Airstream. He thinks that Michael will follow him here, but Alex’s mind isn’t working so well, wrapped up in the relief and joy of seeing Michael again. Just to make sure that he knows where to go, he sends Isobel and Max both a text, since Michael’s phone is still cut off. 

He codes the message, ‘I miss your brother, I’m at his place’, on the off chance that someone is monitoring communications. The last thing he needs is for their reunion to be ruined by the military dragging Michael off to dissect him.

Alex spends the next thirty minutes working scenarios in his head, wondering which of them will actually happen. There’s the one that he wants, which is where he wraps his hands up in Michael’s clothing and refuses to let him go until he’s kissed him breathless. This could go the way of anger, with Alex shouting at him for _leaving_ him. It could also be a disappointment if it turns out that although Michael’s back, it might not have been his choice.

What if Michael didn’t mean to come back? What if he’s back here, but unwillingly?

He forces himself not to jump to conclusions, because there’s no point until he gets a chance to talk to Michael. He’s all energy as he fidgets and paces in halting steps around the junkyard, forcing himself to take a seat in one of the lawn chairs. 

No matter which way this goes, he knows that Michael will be here. He’ll come. 

Another hour passes before he sees movement on the property, a shadowed figure that Alex would know anywhere stepping into the light of the firepit. Heart in his chest, Alex realizes that this will be the first time they’re alone in over six months.

Of all those scenarios he ran through his head, he’s not sure he counted on this one – awkwardness, speckled with Alex’s inability to do anything but stare at him, on his feet the moment Michael fully steps into the light.

“Are you okay?” he asks, frantically. The beer wore off ages ago and he’s sober, but even the sight of Michael is enough to make him feel like he’s under the influence of something else. He could never forget his face, but there’s a difference between looking at the old photos he’d found in Michael’s Airstream and the man himself. 

Michael shrugs, like old habit is telling him to play this off as nothing, which makes Alex so angry. After everything that’s happened, how can he pretend like this? 

“Things got rough on the way in,” he admits. “I got out as soon as it was safe to eject, came down nearby, watching you the whole time staring at that wreck.”

“I though you were dead in it,” Alex snaps, because this isn’t the time for coy jokes or comments, not when he’d genuinely thought for a moment that he’d lost Michael before he even had a chance to say everything he’s been keeping bottled up. 

Michael steps closer, but he doesn’t touch Alex.

It’s good that he doesn’t, because once he does, they won’t be having a conversation. There won’t be a chance for words given what Alex plans to do with this man, and there’s so much to be said before they should be doing that.

“I know,” Michael says, placating Alex, tipping his head to the side apologetically. “I know, I already got the earful from Isobel and Max. I thought I’d seen them pissed off before, but…” 

“You left,” Alex says, trying really hard to sound unaffected by that. He knows exactly how pissed off Isobel and Max are, because he feels it too. “You left us all and at least you talked to them before you left. Me, I just get a Dear John on your way out.”

“Yeah, well,” Michael replies, trailing his fingers over the trailer’s frame as he slowly begins to drift closer. He’s wearing Max’s jacket and a torn shirt underneath, the fire from the pit reflecting on his skin. “I solved a problem that I’d been working on nearly all my life. I didn’t think I had any reason to stay. You made that really clear at the drive-in and the subsequent avoiding me.”

Alex tilts his head to the side, trying to level a look on Michael that should be clear how _stupid_ that statement is. Just because they’d hit a rocky patch didn’t mean he’d wanted Michael to leave forever.

“I just wanted to see if someone was out there,” Michael goes on, voice quiet with his confession. “I’ve never had parents who loved me, I never had anyone who actually wanted me for me, not since…” 

He doesn’t have to say it. They both know he’s talking about Alex.

“How long has it been since I left?” Michael asks.

Alex frowns, because shouldn’t he know? “Six months.” The longest six months of his life since he’d been in Iraq, but he’s sure the pain on his face tells that story.

“It’s been over two years for me,” Michael exhales as he slides his fingers over the back of one of the shitty lawn chairs that dot the junkyard’s landscape, like he’s winding his way to Alex. “At least, two years have passed, from a linear standpoint, but I don’t know how much my body has aged. I’m really glad it wasn’t the other way around, because it’s been hell.”

“You went home,” Alex protests, not understanding. “I thought that’s what you wanted. Max said that you had family there. Did you find your parents?”

Michael shakes his head. “They were in the crash, but I met a bunch of aunts and uncles, more cousins than you could imagine,” he says, a bittersweet smile on his lips. “I have this cousin who’s touch-empathic,” Michael says, and he sounds _thrilled_ to be able to talk about his family like this. “She hugged me and in five seconds, she knew how much I’d given up to go there. She could tell something was wrong before I even got over my willful self-denial. I wanted so badly to pretend that everything back there was perfect, but it wasn’t.”

Alex swallows the lump in his throat. He wants so badly to ask why, but he also wants Michael to be the one to say it, unprompted.

Michael bites his lower lip, eyes sliding over Alex. “I was never gonna make it back there, because it wasn’t home. Not without you. I thought I was doing the mature thing in leaving you alone. You wanted space, I figured how much more could I give you, but then you started calling me through Max…”

Alex is drifting in closer, staring at Michael with a loving tenderness that sweeps through him and makes him feel whole. With every additional word, Alex knows he’s not going to let Michael leave again. He won’t even let him leave tonight until he tells him _everything_ he feels.

“I know I barely picked up after that, but I couldn’t. I had work to do and I needed every minute to do it. I had to retrofit the ship, get everything ready so that I could come back. I was there for two months before I figured out the mistake I made and it took me over a year before I could get out of there. God, Alex, I know you don’t think this is going to work between us…”

“Oh, shut up, Guerin,” Alex says viciously, the last name slips out of habit. He buries his fingers in Michael’s hair to pin him to the trailer with a desperate kiss he’s been waiting six months for. Michael surges back, not to be outdone, and grabs at Alex’s back with both hands, fingers scrabbling for fabric to haul him in tighter, the both of their bodies slamming back against the trailer when Alex makes a needy sound in the back of his throat and Michael takes that as invitation to kiss him harder. 

There goes any hope of conversation and there are still so many things that Alex has left to say. 

He's too busy tangling his fingers through Michael’s curls, relearning the texture and the touch of them, remembering how well their bodies fit together, and how it feels like when they kiss, they speak a language that only they share, like a psychic bond. When Alex pulls back from the kiss, it’s only because he wants to look at him again. Alex lets his gaze fall over his pink lips, his face, and he wants so badly to kiss him again, but he doesn’t. Instead, he lets his thumb slide over the cut on his cheek, wondering where else he’s hurt.

It's his turn to take care of Michael. 

“Inside,” Alex insists roughly, even if he doesn’t take his hands off of Michael. Michael seems to want to do the same, touching bruises on Alex’s face from the airbags. The both of them are tangled up in one another as they make their way into the trailer, not without their fair share of stumbling, between Alex’s leg, Michael’s bruising, and their haste to see and touch each other again.  


Once they’re inside, Alex peels Max’s jacket off of Michael, untucking his shirt from his jeans. The whole time, Michael is silent, staring at him and Alex wouldn’t call it vulnerable or worried, but there’s a way he’s looking at Alex like he doesn’t believe this is happening. 

“Why are you being so gentle with me?”

Alex tugs gently at the hem of Michael’s pants until they’re both sitting on the bed. Once there, he leans down to pry off Michael’s boots, one at a time. After everything they’ve been through, Alex hates that Michael is even asking that question, but it’s not like they were going strong when Michael left. 

“All those times Max spoke to you, my words,” Alex says, turning on the bed so that he’s facing Michael, his bad leg dangling off the side. “There was something I always held back, because I wanted to see your face when I said it.” He leans in to stroke Michael’s cheek, watching how he turns into the touch of his fingertips, and he kicks himself for not understanding how stupid he’d been, only months ago, when he’d tried to hide this from Isobel and the world.

“I didn’t want to hear Max, I wanted to hear you,” Michael mumbles, sounding drunk with exhaustion. “My brother is a weak substitute for your voice.”

Alex already knows that as much as he wants to pin Michael to the bed and welcome him home for hours, there’s more of a chance of them ending tonight curled up together, sharing the air between them, pressed together.

Right now, he’ll take anything.

“What I really wanted to say, what I needed you to hear from _me_ ,” he says, sliding his palms up and down Michael’s knees, gathering up the courage. “You’re not the only one who feels the way you do.” He nods, building himself up to this, the only time he’s ever said this to anyone. “Past, present, future,” he lists, echoing a letter he knows off by heart. “I love you too.” 

Michael looks like he’s biting back on a quip, the kind he always lets loose when things get emotional, but maybe something changed in the years that split them apart. Then, he exhales and it’s like the pressure has been taken off of him. He’s not about to joke or brush this off. He’s taking it seriously, for which Alex is so grateful.

“I didn’t want to force you into anything, not ever. If you felt differently than me, all this time, I didn’t want to…”

“Do I need to shut you up again?” Alex cuts him off, smiling at him with such bittersweet fondness that it aches. “I love you, Michael. I have since I was seventeen, I’m just…a dumb adult.”

“You and me both,” Michael mumbles. “I think I’m getting smarter, though. I came back. I’d chalk that one up to a _genius_ decision.”

Alex definitely agrees. 

They don’t actually get to relearn each other’s bodies that night with intimate touches and long looks and hours spent in discovery. By the time Alex gets Michael fully naked, there are so many wounds and cuts and bruises to tend to that by the time he’s finished patching up the last with the makeshift first aid kit, Michael has finished nursing his flask of acetone, and he’s snoring on the bed, sprawled out naked and looking debauched, but also at _peace_. 

Alex strips off his shirt, takes off his prosthetic carefully, and sets them in a neat pile nearby, dragging some of the heavier blankets off the table with him so he can cover them both up. He pulls Michael into his arms so he can wrap himself around the other man’s back, pressing kisses to his shoulder as he buries his face in his neck, basking in the presence and the _warmth_ of him. 

He’s here. He’s home, he’s back, and he’s Alex’s. 

They’ll work through everything else in the morning, but Alex knows that he’s not intending to let Michael leave again, and he’s got a few people in town who’ll help with that.

* * *

It’s Saturday and no one has to go to work. 

It’s almost a year to the day that Michael came back to earth and in that time, they’ve never talked about what it was actually like for him to be back there. Every time the topic comes up, Michael darts away from it and shifts to a new one, leaving those two years a mystery. Alex has decided it’s time for that to end.

“Come on. We’re going on a date,” Alex insists, because that’s something else he’s been adamant about. 

In the year of forging a relationship, they’ve been firm about a few things – when things are hard, they talk to each other. there are no secrets between them, and lastly, they’re not going to hide in Roswell. Alex loves being able to be open when it comes to making up for lost time with as many dates as he can convince Michael on. In the beginning, he’d been vindictively vicious with them. He’d brought Michael to the Wild Pony where they could make out in a booth, he’d taken him to the Crashdown for milkshakes and fries, and he’d even defiantly brought Michael to the Air Force picnic, right in front of his father. 

There had been something exhilarating in showing off his alien boyfriend in front of the man who’s been obsessed with aliens for decades, convinced they want to destroy humanity. Alex had enjoyed proving that Michael’s only real intention had been to shower Alex with affection all afternoon.

Today, he wants to relive their history on their one-year anniversary and Alex has Michael’ present tucked securely away in his pocket. 

Michael’s still in bed, naked, and not looking inclined to move. The blankets are a mess around him and he rubs at his eyes, staring at Alex with disapproval. There’s not much room to move around in the trailer, but Michael is doing his level-best to take up every inch of the bed. 

“What?” Alex says defensively.

“You’re dressed,” Michael mumbles and buries his face into the pillow. “I hate it.”

“It’s eleven in the morning,” Alex scoffs as he sits down beside Michael in bed, refusing to let himself be waylaid, but a little distraction never hurts. He slides his palm over Michael’s bare hip where the sheets aren’t covering him, not even fighting it when Michael wraps his broad palm around his neck and hauls him down.

Alex is fully dressed in jeans, an old band t-shirt, and one of Michael’s flannels over it, but he lets himself be tugged down. 

“We were up late,” Michael adds, like if he piles enough protests on, he’ll change Alex’s mind.

“Yeah, well, someone in this bed decided that round four wasn’t good enough,” Alex counters, sliding back into the warm space Michael leaves when he shifts in bed. “Seriously, you came, I didn’t, that’s fine.”

“It’s not,” Michael retorts fiercely, like this is something he feels passionate about.

Alex is grinning like an idiot, pressing his forehead to Michael’s. If this is the kind of fight they’re going to have a year in, then he is _so_ willing to bicker more. “I want to go out,” he says again. “You need to get dressed.”

“Why can’t this be a naked date, right here in the trailer?”

Alex pries himself out of bed (which is one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do) and starts tugging at Michael’s hand. “If you’re not out of bed in the next five minutes, then I’m going on this date by myself and then to dinner with your family all alone, which means you’ll get Isobel and Max both complaining to you all tomorrow.”

Nothing. He seems like he’s even considering it.

Alex shrugs, like that’s not even a dent in his armor. 

“Okay,” he says, and decides to bring out the big guns. “If you get out of bed now, I’ll wear the piercings and the eyeliner again tonight.”

That has instant results. Alex feels clothes floating past him from the closet, landing in a heap on the bed as Michael starts shoving his legs into his jeans, a heated look at Alex from where he’s yanking on a white t-shirt, like he’s somehow pissed off about how badly he wants that. Alex grins, smug and confident, sitting on the bed so that he can put his boots on past the new alien prosthetic that Michael had made for him out of pieces from the ship. It’s lighter than anything he’s had before and seems to conform to his body with ease that earth metals don’t have, never leaving an ache.

This had been Michael’s one-year anniversary present to him. “Not exactly paper,” he’d admitted, “but I can give you the plans I sketched out, if you wanna be exact.”

This is why Alex needs date night. He’s got his own gift, but he needs it to be good because his asshole genius boyfriend went and did something completely impossible.

Alex has to wonder what ten years will be like (and he fully intends for them to get there). 

Michael shoves his belt on, long fingers dextrously buckling it up, knowing what it does to Alex. His attention is fully there, his head tipped to the side as he bites his lip, reminding himself of his plan for the day. Shoving Michael back into bed will only give him the satisfaction of winning when Alex wants to have a real date. 

“Do I pass inspection, sir?”

Alex tells his dick to stop reacting, but he does tuck away that thought to roleplay for later, taking his time to inspect Michael with a nod, reaching over to grab his cowboy hat so he can place it on his head.

“Now, you’re perfect,” he says, heading outside with Michael’s truck keys in hand. “Let’s go! We have to be at Isobel’s for seven,” he says, grabbing the bag of items he’d prepared for the date, grinning as he hears Michael bitching fondly behind him, briefly tousling so Michael can get the keys from Alex (but not without a slow kiss to pay the price for them).

It’s not a long drive to get to the main strip of town, where Alex drags Michael into the old UFO Emporium. Since Grant Green died, it hasn’t belonged to anyone and has been left in disrepair, but Michael easily lets them in with a turn of the lock, so that Alex can tug him in past the black curtain to where glow in the dark stars still hang affixed to the walls and ceiling, if a little crooked. 

Here, in the peace and quiet of the museum, Michael looks content.

Alex would rub it in his face that this is definitely worth getting out of bed for, but he’s too busy setting his bag down so that he let his fingers drift through Michael’s hair to hold him near.

He watches with fascination as Michael tips his head to the side, letting the faint light of the museum show greys in his hair that weren’t there before. It could be the stress of the journey, or the time that now splits them apart, but Alex finds himself touching them gently. He loves every part of this man and he’s so glad that their relationship had become like a phoenix, rising from destruction. 

“Aren’t we gonna get arrested for sneaking in?” Michael teases, pushing back his jacket so he can rest his hands on his hips, probably in some awful imitation of Alex, drawing Alex’s eyes straight to that belt buckle. “This place has been closed for years, now, isn’t this…” He leans in, pressed intimately close to Alex as he settles his hands on his waist. “…illegal?” he whispers, hot against Alex’s ear.

“Maybe that’s what makes it exciting,” Alex replies, licking his lower lip as he stares at Michael’s belt, then lets his gaze slide up to his face, where he’s illuminated by the dim museum lighting. Everything is dusty and covered, but they haven’t taken the star wall down, which means that one of Alex’s best memories remains intact. 

It’s never going to be like that first time, when Alex had been rife with panic that Michael was going to go all Kyle Valenti on him and turn bully, but instead, had kissed him like they fit together. 

He digs into his bag and unveils the blanket he’s brought with them, beaming with pride as he sets up their little starry picnic, patting the space beside him as he coaxes Michael to join him. “This is all really nice,” Michael says suspiciously. “Usually date night is just a thinly veiled excuse for us to fuck.”

Alex blushes at the accusation, because it’s not _wrong_ , but he did have something more in mind for tonight.

“I wanted to talk about your home.”

“I am home,” Michael says immediately, with fierce defensiveness in his words.

“No, I know, I mean, when you went back there.” Alex rolls his eyes, because the macho defense about Roswell being home is appreciated, but kind of the wrong audience right now. “You talked about it, barely, that first night, and then it’s like you want to forget it ever happened. It’s still a part of you, it’s still your family. I want to know more, because I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”

That had been a hard conversation to have, when Alex had discovered _everything_ , finding out about the truth of what Isobel had done. It had made him understand so much more of why Michael had been the way he was back then, and Alex just wished it could have been different, for all of them.

He's still cautious around Isobel, but at least now he knows that Michael’s only ever worked to protect the people he loves. 

“I don’t know what kind of secrets you think I’m holding out on you,” Michael admits, stretching out on the blanket, his palm on Alex’s back where he can rub between his shoulder blades. “But, sure, I’ll talk. You gotta help me out though. What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know,” Alex admits. “Does your family look like you? Do they all have your hair?” he asks, sliding his fingers through and tweaking one of the curls with his fingers. “I don’t know, I like the idea of a whole family of cherubic aliens who look like you.”

“Yeah,” Michael laughs as he rolls onto his back, which allows Alex to follow him, pressing his palm on his chest as he leans in against him, giving him slow, soft kisses to his jaw, like he’s rewarding him for talking about this. “Yeah, my little cousins had these crazy curls,” he admits. “And my aunt, she has eyes just like me. Our powers, I guess they’re pretty random, there wasn’t any connection there.”

Alex keeps moving his fingers on Michael’s chest, remembering what Michael had said about his cousin _knowing_ something was off. “Did you tell them about me?”

Michael gives Alex that _look_ and he’s seventeen all over again, falling so stupidly in love that he doesn’t know what to do about it. 

“I left,” Michael’s words are quiet and as much as Alex hates being reminded that Michael went, it doesn’t matter because he’d come home, “and I went looking for acceptance. My whole life here on earth was miserable with a few solid exceptions. When I finished building the ship, knowing that you’d said we wouldn’t work out, that Max and Isobel would be fine, I wanted to find home.”

Alex keeps rubbing Michael’s chest when he pauses. 

“It’s really beautiful there,” he says. “I mean, similar atmosphere and environment, but more technologically advanced,” he goes on. “I could have lived there for years and still never even cracked half of their technology. I’m not really a genius there,” he admits. “It’s kind of the status quo, but it was incredible. It was beautiful and it challenged me and there were people who were so happy to see me. I don’t actually know who cried more, me or them.”

It had been idyllic, Alex is hearing, which makes the fact that Michael came back even more important.

“I tried to settle in and adjust. There were family dinners and no one shouting or hurting me like the night always ended in the group homes, but it always felt wrong.”

He reaches out and slides his fingers together with Alex’s. It’s his bad hand, but he still squeezes tight, bringing their joined hands over his heart. 

“I was miserable,” he confesses. “I was home, but I wasn’t. It took me leaving the galaxy to figure out that the only place I ever really wanted to be was with you. I couldn’t shut up about you to my family after that. I think they got tired of the star-crossed alien-human love story. Then, you called,” he says, staring at Alex, not looking away. “I started building the next day, because I knew what a mistake I’d made and if I didn’t get back to you, I’d regret it for the rest of my life. So, I’m gonna say something really cheesy now…”

“Now?” Alex teases.

“Very funny,” Michael deadpans. “You’re the only home I need,” he says, as casually as when he’d said he liked Alex, the first time. 

It takes his breath away, same as those pronouncements always do, and Alex latches onto this opportunity for what it is. 

“Hey,” he murmurs, and drags Michael in for a slow kiss, fake artifacts surrounding them and lit by fake stars, but the kiss is plenty real. He shifts, enough to get what’s in his pocket. He knows that he should’ve done something like get a keychain or make a whole production out of this, but what he’s doing isn’t about the act. It’s about what comes next. Pressing the key into Michael’s palm, he wraps his hand around that hand and squeezes. “Move in with me.”

“Finally sick of my trailer?” Michael teases. “I should’ve known your refined tastes would kick in someday, even if you put up with me.”

“You can park it in the front lawn, I don’t care, but I’m tired of driving an hour to get to you,” Alex complains. “You said you felt like you were at home with me, I want that,” he says, shedding any last reservations he’s had. “We know how we feel, we know that we want to be together, so let’s start making a home.”

Michael takes the key and studies it in the dim light of the museum and he looks so _upset_ that suddenly Alex worries that he’s fucked up.

“Michael?”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Michael says, wiping at his cheeks. “I uh,” he starts, ducking his head away, like even now he doesn’t want to be vulnerable in front of Alex when they’re so past that. “I never had a key before,” he admits. “No one ever gave me one for the group homes or any of the families I was with. I was always temporary,” he says, clearing his throat. “And with my trailer, I never needed one, so this is…” He closes his palm around the key and squeezes, tight. “This means a lot to me. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Alex breathes out.

This time, there’s no hesitation on either of their parts when Alex leans in for the kiss. They also don’t stop there. For hours, they do what Alex wishes they’d done all those years ago. They never should have gone back to the shed. Maybe if they’d stayed at the museum, they would’ve been caught by some tourists and it might have been embarrassing, but things might have turned out so differently. 

Then again, considering where they are, Alex isn’t sure he’d change a single moment, not even the awful ones. 

That evening, they head to Isobel’s for dinner. It’s a tradition that started as soon as Michael crash-landed back to earth, like the Evans are trying to prove the same thing that Alex has been – that Michael never needs to leave again, if he’s looking for where he belongs. Over the last few months, it’s become more crowded.

First, Noah had been brought into the loop and though there had been a few weeks where it didn’t seem like he’d join, he’s fixed at Isobel’s side. “For better or worse,” he’d said, but these days, it does seem to be for the better. 

Liz had come around eventually too, like she was drawn to the magnet that was Max and she couldn’t stay away, no matter how rough things got. Alex got that, too, but is glad to see people starting to find a way to happiness.

It’s always Alex and Michael’s job to bring the alcohol and they’ve yet to disappoint. Tonight, they barely manage, rushing to the store before it closes, not even having time to change on their way back from the museum. The resulting look they’re both sporting is rough and telling, given that they’d spent most of the afternoon fucking in a defunct museum to relive old memories and remake some of the better ones.

“Busy day?” Max deadpans, staring at the both of them on the front porch as Isobel takes the wine with a knowing smirk. “You uh…” He gestures to Michael’s neck and the hickey that Alex has left there. “I could heal it, but then it might look even more conspicuous.” 

Michael laughs as he runs his hands through his hair sheepishly, sharing a look with Alex. He does try and tweak his collar to hide the mark, but it really doesn’t do much. “Yeah, we uh, we had a good day,” he admits, but he doesn’t tell them about their plans, not yet. 

It’s a private thing for them and eventually, the family will be brought into it. It’s not like they’re getting married or anything, they’re just taking the next steps down a road of open trust and communication.

“Please don’t let them start making out!” Isobel shouts from the kitchen. “Dinner will get cold.”

“You got a bucket of cold water, then?” Max replies, just as loudly.

“Yes!” 

Michael gives Alex a knowing nod. “She’s not kidding,” he guarantees, tangling their fingers together as he drags Alex towards the dinner table. 

It occurs to him, then, that Michael has smiled more in the past year than he’s seen since they first got together, at seventeen, and it makes Alex grin like a kid in love, knowing that he’s a big reason why. “Hey,” Alex tugs on Michael’s hand to stop him before they can get to the dining table.

They’re going to be so late for dinner and he might be getting hit with a bucket of cold water, but he doesn’t care.

“I love you,” he says, heart bursting with joy to see Michael so happy and knowing that he feels the same. “I love seeing you like this,” he murmurs, feeling the gentle pull that’s Michael using his powers to tug Alex towards him. He lets his fingers gently touch the corner of Michael’s lips where they curve upwards. “I’d have given anything to see this smile when I was in Iraq,” he murmurs. 

“You’re the reason why I’m so happy,” Michael tells him. “I’m home when I’m with you.”

“Cheesy,” Alex whispers, a faint taunt, but he’s grinning like an idiot. 

Then, even with the threat of cold water, they do what they’ve been warned not to. Michael presses him up against Isobel’s hallway with a _thud_ with a kiss and Alex forgets all about dinner, right up until Michael yelps loudly and Alex does the same, a terrifying sensation of ice down his back, even though there’s no one behind him but the wall. 

There’s Isobel, though, in his head and thinking icy thoughts. She’s also standing right behind Michael with a physical piece of ice pressed against his neck. 

“Dinner is ready,” she tells them. “So if you could stop humping in public, we’d all appreciate it.”

 _I’m glad you’re happy_ , Isobel whispers in his mind, _but if you make us eat cold eggplant parmesan, you’ll regret it._

Michael steps away from Alex with a sheepish grin, holding both his hands up like he’s saying, ‘look, sis, no groping’. Isobel eyes them both suspiciously and Alex gets the feeling that she doesn’t plan on leaving them alone until they’re both seated at the dinner table. Resigned to his fate, he marches to a very delicious dinner, swatting at Michael’s foot a few times during the meal because it’s _family dinner_ and even he has some boundaries.

Later, when dinner is over and the conversation has died down, Alex wanders outside to stare at the stars, trying to figure out which one of them Michael had gone to and held that beautiful world with his family on it. Inside, Michael had been helping with the dishes, but now he feels Michael’s steady warmth as he wraps his arms around him from behind, faintly smelling of acetone like they’d decided to have a chaser inside. “Which one’s home?” Alex asks him, adjusting his stance so he can let Michael guide him there.

Michael doesn’t say a word. Instead, he buries his face in Alex’s neck with a kiss and presses his hand over Alex’s heart in reply and in that moment, Alex knows that he’ll never worry about Michael leaving again.

* * *

“Ignition sequence started, safety measures in check, and warp drive enabled.”

Alex rolls his eyes from the passenger seat of their newly refurbished car. “It’s a car, not a spaceship, and that got old about five times ago.”

“Though I did build one of those from scratch. Twice,” he boasts, shoving the last of the suitcases into the trunk. “This one is definitely going to run a lot slower, but after that last crash landing, I don’t think I mind.” He bounds to the passenger side to tangle his fingers into Alex’s shirt, pulling him up enough for a kiss. “Also, I built this car too,” he adds, smirking that smug little smile of his, murmuring those smug words against Alex’s lips.

“Are you going to tell me that _every time_ we take a trip?” Alex asks, shooing Michael away. “Come on, get in, I want to see the Grand Canyon, not sit here and hear about your incredible genius inventions,” he deadpans, even though there are days when he doesn’t want to do anything else. 

Michael laughs as he heads for the driver’s seat, sliding on the hood with his ass a little before getting in. Instead of starting it, though, he reaches over and cups Alex’s neck to bring him in for a long, lazy kiss. It’s not the kind of kiss you give someone for luck before you head out on a journey. It’s the kind that leaves Alex dazed and remembering that the back seat is large enough for both of them to sprawl out on it. 

Even now, five years in, he’s surprised that his feelings have never faded. If anything, they’ve grown brighter, even if they’ve changed. They’re both calmer, more mature, and they both know what they want out of life. 

“Let’s go,” he coaxes, because it’s their five-year anniversary and they’ve got plans. 

That night, they’ll be camping underneath the stars, wrapped up in a single sleeping bag to conserve warmth. Above them, shooting stars will dot the sky, galaxies will wrap their way around the planet, and a whole universe will move and operate, but Michael will only have eyes for Alex. There’ll be two platinum bands in Alex’s pocket and at some point, he’ll slip it on Michael’s finger when the night is quiet and it’s just the two of them, a promise he wants to make that he intends to keep. 

On the drive there, they’ll stop at every kitschy and terrible roadside stop so Michael can bitch about earth culture and Alex will kiss him to shut him up before getting strangers to take their picture in front of whatever World’s Largest they’ve found. They’ll risk getting thrown out of rest stops when they try and see if they can both fit in a stall, fumbling to get their hands on each other when it’s been too long on the road without it. 

Right now, it’s time to put the town behind them. Michael Guerin leaves Roswell again, only this time, Alex is at his side and neither of them are looking for home.

There’s no need to, because as long as they’re together, they’ve already found it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for coming along for the ride and I hope I was able to drag us all out of the dark angst for a while. I've got some more planned, and I am over on [tumblr](http://andrea-lyn.tumblr.com/) to fret about how incredible these two are.


End file.
